


growing pains

by kkpsio



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Minor Sunaosa, Trans Miya Atsumu, atsumu needs a hug and luckily for him his friends have arms, brief allusions to transphobia-related violence, brief deadname referencing, mild internalised transphobia, minor sakuatsu, osamu is the best brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkpsio/pseuds/kkpsio
Summary: Osamu watches as his usually obnoxiously confident twin curls inward with a shaky breath, and it makes his stomach twist and his heart clench. It’s strange and wrong and he hates it. “I think I’m a boy, ‘Samu.” The words are barely a whisper when they come out, and Osamu hates that too.“Fine.”Miya Atsumu, and four times he learns that he doesn't have to deal with everything by himself (even though he keeps trying to, like the dumb stubborn fuck he is).
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	growing pains

_i._

Miya Akihiro is thirteen years old, and she swears math didn’t used to be this hard. She glares at the paper in front of her, as if that will keep all the numbers from jumbling together, as if glaring will help her focus again. If math is this hard next year, she’s quitting school.

“Shut up,” her twin mutters.

She looks up, affronted. “I didn’t even say anything!” 

Without looking up from his history textbook – fuck, she had forgotten about that homework - Osamu sighs. “Yer thinkin’ too loud. S’annoying.” He scribbles something on a piece of paper next to him, and Akihiro scowls, sticking her tongue out at him.

As usual, Osamu knows, even though he’s still focused on his notes. As usual, Osamu ignores her for a moment before speaking again. “What’s wrong with ya, anyway?”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” _Too defensive_ , she thinks belatedly, cursing internally. A quiet sense of dread pokes at her, but she tries to press forward.

“You’ve been moodier than usual.” Already ready with a brash quip to change the subject, she freezes. Has she? She tries to think back, tries to think of specific instances that would stand out to Osamu. She thought she had been careful, she’d worked so hard to keep these weird, fucked-up thoughts a secret, to pretend she was normal-

“Quieter,” he explains, unaware that his voice is becoming nothing but a muffled echo in Akihiro’s head. “Not that I’m complaining, mind. I’ve prayed every day for at least seven years now that you would shut yer big mouth already. But somethin’ is weird.”

_Akihiro’s eyes widened as she read down the informational page. She had been watching some video, and they had mentioned something called “transgender,” saying that there was a link in the description to explain more if anybody was interested. She had clicked on it on a whim, feeling bored while her twin was out for the afternoon, hanging out with some new kid who had just moved next door from Tokyo or something._

_People whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth –_

_Internal gender doesn’t match –_

_Many transgender people are prescribed hormones by their doctors –_

_She had never read something so fast in her life._

_She read it over and over again, as if the words were going to disappear. All at once, she felt relieved in a way she didn’t know was possible, because she didn’t know any of this was possible, and then terrified, because what does this mean, what did she do now? What if she told people and everybody laughed? Why hadn’t she heard of this before, it must not be normal, people already don’t like her because she’s loud and mean and can’t sit still in class like all the other girls, and her parents are already upset with her because they don’t understand why her grades are suddenly dropping, and they don’t understand when she tells them she just can’t focus, when she insists it’s not her fault-_

_She deletes her phone browser history and closes the app before setting her phone down resolutely. No, nobody could know about this, ever, she decided. She would just forget she ever saw anything._

Osamu at last looks up from his textbook, mildly exasperated. “Are ya even payin’ – Hiro?” He falters as his sister startles and looks at him with all the panic and fear of a wild animal, her breathing coming out ragged and funny. He immediately gets up from the desk but stops in his path toward their kotatsu as she flinches. “Hiro, what’s wrong,” he says in a hushed whisper, trying not to betray his own fear in his voice.

Akihiro lets out a tiny whimper and Osamu blanches. He’s never seen her like this before, and he’s starting to freak the fuck out, because what if she’s _dying_ or something? He takes a step toward the door to get their parents and only has to hear a frantic _don’t_ before his body is turning around, eyes wide as he watches Akihiro’s hunched back tremble with her attempts to steady her breathing, her fist making a wrinkled mess of her t-shirt, eyes focused on an old stain on their carpet. She’s not looking at him, but he nods minutely, gingerly sitting down about seven feet in front of her. He’s never felt so helpless.

It takes a few minutes, but Akihiro eventually quiets, and Osamu, who has chosen a different stain on their wall to stare at, glances at her. “You….uh, okay?” he says, wincing at his own hesitation and awkwardness. Things have never been like this before, between them. He’s used to bruises from inevitable scuffles over whose turn it is to clean their bathroom, merciless teasing whenever one of them gets a fleeting crush. Insults that are just shy of being too harsh, and insults that are definitely too harsh and warrant a few punches as retribution. As he runs through these uncomfortable thoughts, he misses what Akihiro says.

“Huh?”

“I’m a boy.”

Osamu isn’t sure if he heard right, at first. He looks at Akihiro, who is adamantly staring at the stain. Her shoulders are tense, like she’s waiting for something. Osamu gets the feeling that he should breach whatever the fuck is going on with some sort of care. “Yer a boy.” He repeats cautiously.

Akihiro looks up, eyes scared but blazing. “Yeah,” she says curtly. Her shoulders are still tense. Daring him to challenge her. Osamu meets her glare steadily, not knowing where to go from here. He notices her relax a little after he doesn’t deny it, and she looks away again. She’s still scowling. Osamu waits for her to continue, not wanting to make things worse by accidentally starting a fight.

After a few moments, Akihiro speaks, gaze focused on the opposite wall now. “I saw it online. Ya can…There’re people. People that are born as boys that’re really girls, and people born as girls that’re really boys. I…”

Osamu watches as his usually obnoxiously confident twin curls inward with a shaky breath, and it makes his stomach twist and his heart clench. It’s strange and wrong and he hates it. “I think I’m a boy, ‘Samu.” The words are barely a whisper when they come out, and Osamu hates that too. 

“Fine.”

A few seconds of silence pass before Akihiro looks at him slowly, eyes unabashedly hopeful. Any uncertainty Osamu may have felt disappears immediately, replaced by a firm determination. “If ya say yer a boy, yer a boy. Just as well, now ya can come play volleyball with me for real.” Akihiro blinks, eyes welling up with tears before an arm comes to scrub them away. He smiles, just a little, before it falls again.

“But people will think it’s weird.”  
  
“So? They try to start somethin’, ya tell me and I’ll talk to ‘em. Ya won’t have to deal with it alone.” Osamu says fiercely, eyes glaring at Akihiro as if culprits have already been named. He never wants his sister – no, his _brother_ – to look like this ever again. Akihiro brings up his arm again as more tears start coming out, but he nods with a watery smile. Osamu nods back firmly.

“But what do I call ya?” he muses after a moment as he lets Akihiro recollect himself. “Akihiro is a girl’s name.”

Akihiro’s eyebrows furrow. He hadn’t been planning on sharing any of this with anyone, ever, so he had never thought to look for a new name. But Osamu was right. He had never felt like his name fit him anyway.

“Ya should be Atsumu.” He looks at Osamu questioningly, and Osamu is smirking at him. His eyes narrow suspiciously. “Yer always tryin’ to eat all the food off my plate, so it fits.”

“Fuck off, ‘Samu.” But Akihiro cracks a grin anyway, still basking in the immense relief that at the very least, nothing between them has really changed. “Wait,” he says suddenly, eyes wide. “If I was Atsumu, then I could be ‘Sumu! ‘Sumu and ‘Samu!”

Osamu’s eyes go wide too, and he nods quickly, joke forgotten. “’Sumu and ‘Samu.” Atsumu repeats reverently. Osamu looks at his brother before making the impulse decision to hug him, and it only takes a second before arms wrap around him, too.

“’Sumu and ‘Samu,” he agrees.

_ii._

“What the hell’s going on with you?”

Miya Atsumu is fifteen years old, and he doesn’t know what it is that brings him more amusement than usual about riling up the curly-haired wing spiker from Itachiyama, but it’s quickly becoming his second favourite activity at training camp.

He grins, looking up from his spot on the locker room bench to meet Sakusa’s eyes. “That’s no way to talk to yer favourite setter, Omi-Omi,” he drawls. Sakusa Kiyoomi stiffens at the nickname.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Whatever ya say, Omi-kun.”

Sakusa huffs, rolling his eyes. They had only known each other two days so far, but he had learned to give up quickly, after at least ten failed attempts to get Miya to call him by his actual name. “Whatever. Anyway, your sets were too low today.”

Atsumu flinches, just a bit, busying himself with tying his sneakers and putting his volleyball shoes in his bag. He’d known that, and he’d already internally berated himself for it. But nobody else had seemed to notice, so he figured he had gotten away with it for today.

Nobody at the camp other than the coaches knows that he’s transgender, and he’s not too keen on anybody finding out. The boys’ team at Inarizaki had accepted him without a hitch (though he was pretty sure, in the beginning, that it was partly due to Osamu’s silent threatening presence next to him), but he was intimately aware that not everybody would always be as pleasant about it. The downside of that meant that he had to wear his binder for longer lengths of time than he was used to, and it was definitely taking a toll on him.

Atsumu shrugs nonchalantly and regrets it immediately as he winces slightly at the pain. “Just an off day,” he says casually, hating the words even as he says them. He doesn’t have off days. How embarrassing. But he zips his bag up nevertheless, standing up and slinging it over his shoulder with the careless arrogance he’d learned to perfect in the past year.

Sakusa narrows his eyes, and they move over Atsumu in a way that feels unnervingly like an interrogation. He tries to convey innocence in his body language. Tries not to squirm, until Sakusa finally speaks. “Are you stretching properly, Miya?”

Dangerous territory. “Aw, are ya worried about me, Omi-Omi?” he coos, grinning over his fear. He delights in the way that Sakusa’s cheeks gain a small flush and he leans away just a tad.

“Shut up. Your shoulders just seem tense, that’s all.”

Atsumu’s smile tightens. “I’m fine, Omi-Omi.”

Sakusa stares at him, clearly still suspicious, but drops it after a final “whatever, be better tomorrow” and stalking out of the room. Atsumu waits until he hears footsteps down the hall to drop his façade, groaning. What a pain in the ass.

He walks out of the locker room a few minutes later, going straight to his room. As soon as the door shuts behind him, he feels a wave of mental and physical exhaustion wash over him. He wrestles out of his shirt and binder as quickly as he can, tossing them on the floor before flopping gracelessly on his bed, uncaring that he’s still sweaty. Atsumu lays there, lets the tacky air of the air conditioner dry his sweat, and the machine whirs in the otherwise silent room. 

“This sucks,” he mutters bitterly into the bed. He’s supposed to be enjoying himself. He loves volleyball, and here he is, with a bunch of people who are _good_ and _fun_ to play with, and here he is, fucking up simple tosses because of his stupid binder.

He aches with envy as he thinks about his brother’s naturally flat chest. He knows from reading about other people’s experiences that he’s pretty lucky – his jawline is defined, he gains muscle easily, his height even above that of many of his cisgender classmates. He passes well, and he knows this. But there are some things that simply can’t be ignored or made up for. Things that inherently separate him from being like his brother, or his teammates. Feeling more miserable and tired than ever, Atsumu pulls the duvet over himself and closes his eyes.

\-------

Atsumu knows that if Osamu were here, he would have shoved him, berated him for being so dramatic. But he swears that he hears the locker room door click open and it sounds like a fucking gunshot. He’s frozen, his shirt halfway down his arms, and he thinks distantly he must look objectively funny, stock-still and burning red. But more than anything, he thinks of nothing. He tries desperately to come up with something, anything to say, a stupid joke, a sarcastic comment, even if it worms its way out of his mouth with a pathetic wobble.

But all he feels his fear as Sakusa just. Stands there. Silent. A minute passes. Another click as the door shuts on its own from its weight. Atsumu’s eyes fall absently on the water bottle just a few feet away from him, which Sakusa had probably come back to get. It has a stupid little laminated post-it note on it that says ‘do not touch’ in Sakusa’s annoyingly neat kanji.

“Miya.”

Atsumu gulps, not looking at him, because he sounds _pissed_ and oh god, he realises, it’s just a tiny bit attractive, the way he growled that, and oh god, he has a crush on Sakusa Kiyoomi and oh fuck, Sakusa Kiyoomi is definitely about to beat him up in this shitty locker room for being trans.

But he doesn’t give Atsumu any more opportunity to continue this train of thought, because he’s walking toward him, and Atsumu panics, taking a step back because he’s _definitely glaring_ and Sakusa just keeps walking forward and he steps back until his back hits the wall and he prepares himself for the first punch with his eyes screwed tight-

“Why the fuck have you been wearing your binder for practice?”

Atsumu’s eyes fly open, glance quickly over Sakusa’s clenched fists that are decidedly _not_ punching him. Sakusa seethes, impatient, waiting for an answer. He’s so confused. “Wait, what?”

The boy in front of him inhales like he really is trying not to punch Atsumu, eyes shutting. “Your _binder_ , Miya, you’ve clearly been wearing it during practice. Are you trying to put yourself in the fucking hospital?” Atsumu can only stare at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish as he tries to put together the situation.

“So…yer not? Mad that I’m trans?”

Sakusa loses some of his heat as he tilts his head slightly and stares back. “Why would I be mad?” He looks almost as confused as Atsumu, now.

Atsumu looks away, embarrassed. “'M not a real guy,” he mumbles, mouth twisting into a frown. He hears a scoff and he looks back up with a glare. “What?” he asks waspishly.

“You’re an idiot. As if having a different body would prevent you from being a real guy.” Sakusa counters, glowering at him again. “Anyway, that’s not the point, the point is that if you keep wearing your binder for twelve hours of practice a day, you’re going to crack your ribs or something.”

Atsumu is reeling. There’s so much going on. He slowly puts his shirt back on, watching Sakusa warily. “How do ya even…know about this stuff?” He knows Sakusa isn’t trans, he’s seen him change in the locker room. Sakusa sighs, sitting down on the bench. Atsumu hesitates and then sits down next to him. They both stare at the lockers. “Motoya came out right after we entered junior high,” Sakusa says quietly, still facing the lockers. “I’m surprised you didn’t know. He doesn't really hide it, or anything. He wears a sports bra for practice, by the way.” he adds pointedly.

Atsumu exhales, short and sharp through his nose. “’Samu always said I was shit at payin’ attention to what was goin’ on around me,” he says, wry. Sakusa glances at him, eyes amused and the corner of his mouth upturned just a bit, and Atsumu feels his heart beat a faster again, but for different reasons.

Sakusa stands up, retrieving his water bottle from the corner of the room. “He’s right,” he says as he walks toward the door. Atsumu doesn’t move from his spot on the bench, watches as Sakusa pauses briefly under the threshold. He gets the feeling that he's missing something, like he's talking about something else too, but he can't figure out what it could be. Sakusa doesn’t look back, and Atsumu feels himself hold his breath in some sort of anticipation. He’s glad he did, because he thinks otherwise, he might’ve missed Sakusa’s quiet “take better care of yourself” before he disappeared.

(Hours later, Atsumu hears a knock at his door. Wondering what the hell anybody could want at 10:30 at night, he opens it a crack only to see a plastic bag on the floor. He glances around, but nobody is in the hallway, and he takes the bag back into his room, peering into it. A sports bra, with a post-it note on it. ‘Idiot’ is the only word on it, written in annoyingly neat kanji.

Atsumu _definitely_ has a crush on Sakusa Kiyoomi.) 

_iii._

“Atsumu?”

Miya Atsumu is eighteen years old, and he’s cursing that damned Nekoma setter for getting his best friend into League of Legends, because that’s the only reason he would’ve been sitting at his desk at 1:00 AM, the only reason why he even saw Atsumu limping up their quiet street in the first place. He turns around, mourning the fact that he really could’ve gotten away with it, at least until morning. His parents had gone to visit an aunt in Tokyo for the weekend, and Osamu had learned to sleep through any racket Atsumu might make a long time ago. Despite his constant fighting and shit-starting, he was still a third-year. He really didn't want to make a big deal out of anything, especially so close to the end of the year. He was just trying to play good volleyball and graduate like everyone else.

Suna Rintarou stares at him from his spot next to the mailbox. Atsumu watches his eyes flicker quickly between his black eye, his swollen lip, the rip in his shirt, and the drying blood on his forehead. “Who,” he says simply, upon finishing his assessment. Atsumu has to stop himself from flinching at his tone, uncharacteristically cold and hard. He almost starts to laugh, to try to pass it off as nothing before he catches Suna’s eye and they’re just as stony. He swallows nervously, not wanting to meet his eye.

Suna softens a bit as he steps forward and meets him, his hands coming to rest carefully on Atsumu’s shoulders. “Who did this to you, ‘Sumu?” he asks quietly, a tinge of sadness joining the anger in his eyes. Suna knows, for all Atsumu's fighting and shit-starting, that he hides a lot more hurt than he lets on. Suna knows that Atsumu knows that he knows.

Atsumu is grateful for Suna. It’s so easy to be pitied. It’s so easy to be babied and coddled as a transgender man and he’s always hated it, even before he realised he was a boy. He’s not weak, and he hates being pitied because it makes him feel weak. And Atsumu is grateful, because even though he looks sad, Sunarin still doesn’t pity him. He breathes out with a tired smile, and Suna raises his eyebrows, prompting him as patiently as he can. “Some guys from Class 3-2. Apparently, they overheard me talkin’ with Kita-san on the phone ‘bout my hormone treatments, and.” He trails off, gesturing toward himself - _the rest is history_.

It wasn’t that Atsumu couldn’t fend for himself – he had grown up with Osamu after all, and it wasn’t like he could be one of the best setters in the nation without a significant amount of strength training. But he hadn’t been paying attention, too excited to talk to his former captain about the team and Kita’s work on the farm, and by the time he had ended the call he had been surrounded by four sneering smirks and menacing leers, in an area without any viable escape routes. But he’s tired and everything hurts, and he knows he’ll just have to tell the story again anyway when Osamu wakes up. So he doesn’t go into further detail and pleads with his eyes for the short explanation to suffice for now. 

Suna frowns but comes to the same conclusion Atsumu does. Osamu will take the lead later. Anyway, he's not Osamu. Suna is Atsumu's best friend, and while it's Osamu's role to burn crops and raise hell for Atsumu, it's Suna's role to make sure Atsumu has what he needs _now _. So he doesn't press the issue, and he's leaning down a bit without another word, gently maneuvering Atsumu’s arm over his shoulders so he can use him as support.__

____

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

____

____

____

____

_iv._

____

Miya Atsumu is twenty-four years old, and the first thing he notices when he wakes up is that his mouth is really fucking dry.

____

He blinks blearily. He’s never been hit by a truck before, but he figures this is probably close to what that would feel like. He raises his hand to rub at his eyes, pausing when he feels something attached to his finger. He looks at it in confusion before he remembers. He’s in the hospital.

____

Atsumu grimaces. He sort of hates hospitals. It’s uncomfortable and off-putting, makes him feel like he’s being lured into some sort of trap, with its paintings of generic park scenes and pitiful wallpaper next to metal tools and big beeping machines. The air is always cold and dry, and Atsumu hates that too. 

____

He’s in the room by himself, and he glances to his right, where the window is. It’s dark and snowing, and he can see the mass expanse of Tokyo’s glimmering skyline from the floor he’s on. A quick glance at a clock on the wall tells him it’s just a bit past 8:00 PM. He watches cars move forward in long lines of red and yellow, watches the snowflakes get pulled every which way in the wind. Out of nowhere, watching the cars move and the snowflakes dance, he gets a heavy, suffocating feeling, like the first time he had the flu as an adult and had to deal with the terrible realisation that nobody was there to take care of him, that he had to sit there with his fever and his runny nose all alone in his shitty tiny apartment, miles away from his parents and his brother like he never had been before. His eyes water, and he feels childish and silly. He’s crying over something as dumb as loneliness, because what? He saw some fucking snowflakes?

____

Osamu is in Hiroshima.

____

Osamu had asked him about it, over and over – _‘Sumu, don’t be an idiot, this is a big deal, of course I’m going to be there_ – but Atsumu had waved him off.

____

The surgery didn’t even warrant him staying in the hospital overnight, he had said, and Osamu needed to go to Hiroshima for talks of potential funding for his onigiri restaurant, and besides that he knew Suna had been busy doing extra training all season to earn a starter spot, so he and Osamu hadn’t gotten to be gross together in ages. Osamu had eventually agreed after twenty minutes more of convincing, albeit reluctantly, and with the caveat that he’d be there the next day for a celebratory dinner. Atsumu had rolled his eyes and pretended he wasn’t touched, and Osamu had flipped him off as he ended the call.

____

Of course, when the hospital had called Osamu after the surgery, saying that Atsumu had been particularly sensitive to the anesthesia and would need to stay overnight, his idiot twin had been ready to hop on the shinkansen and come a day early anyway. Atsumu, despite his hazy state of consciousness, was as stubborn as ever, grabbing the phone from the nurse and slurring a “ _If ya don’t get yer stupid business deal, yer not gonna have enough money to get that one place ya like. ‘M fine, dumbass_ ” before passing out completely.

____

Atsumu and Osamu are not close like some other siblings are. They have always argued and punched and insulted, and Atsumu prefers it that way. It’s comforting, even. But they’ve also always been there for each other, and damn it if Atsumu didn’t wish Osamu would walk in and wrap him in a tight hug right now.

____

He sniffs, tearing his eyes away from the window as the dryness in his mouth and the throbbing ache in the back of his head begin to become unbearable. His hands start to pat the bed, searching for the remote with the call button.

____

Soon after he finds and presses it, a nurse comes in, cup of ice chips already in hand with a sympathetic smile. He politely hands him the box of tissues on his bedside table, otherwise ignoring his red nose and wet eyes. He has a clipboard in his other hand, and he starts to ask, “How are you feeli-“ But he’s cut off by loud voices in the hallway, clearly audible, even though coming from at least all the way at the opposite end of the hallway.

____

“His name is Miya Atsumu, he’s this tall-“

____

“He’s a volleyball player! We’re his teammates!”

____

Atsumu chokes on an ice chip, looking at the closed door in bewilderment before breaking out into bright laughter. _What the absolute fuck._

____

“Oh, that’s him! That’s him!” he hears, followed by a mess of frantic footsteps, and he laughs harder, pounding his bed in mirth. The nurse looks at him and then the door, perplexed.

____

The door flies open, and his nurse jumps back as the source of the chaos practically tumbles into the room. They are followed after a few seconds by a second, disheveled nurse. “You can’t just run around and go wherever you want!” she scolds, though it loses some of its gravity as she leans against the doorway, trying to catch her breath and clutching at a stitch in her side. Atsumu presses his closed hand to his mouth in an attempt to calm down.

____

But Bokuto and Hinata turn around immediately, looking properly chastised as they firmly bow their heads and apologise in loud unison, like they’re at practice and they’ve been told off by the coach. The nurse startles back at their volume and Atsumu bursts out laughing again.

____

The nurse wilts and turns around, shaking her head and rubbing at her temples as she leaves the room. Atsumu’s current nurse stares between the doorway and him as they all watch her go. “I’m, ah.” He starts, addressing Atsumu. “I’m going to come back in a little bit, okay?”

____

He eyes at the other two men, who nod at him politely, still with sheepish expressions on their faces. He smiles tentatively at them as he nods back, closing the door behind him.

____

“What the hell are ya doin’ here,” Atsumu says after he leaves, unable to stop the fondness from leaking into his words as Bokuto and Hinata turn to him.

____

Bokuto frowns, crossing his arms. “More like, why didn’t you tell us you were getting surgery today!” He squints for a moment, thinking before he amends his statement. “Not that you had to or anything, but hospitals are so gross, Tsum-Tsum, it sucks to be here alone. And me n’ Shouyou could’ve brought you chocolates or flowers or something!” Hinata bobs his head next to him, his mouth set in a pout with his hands on his hips, and Atsumu vaguely feels like he’s being reprimanded by his parents.

____

“Wait, how did ya even find out?”

____

Bokuto looks sort of sheepish again, and he rubs the back of his neck. “Myaa-sam texted us and said that you wouldn’t let him come after you found out you had to stay overnight. Since he can’t come until tomorrow, he told us to come check on you for him. Omi-kun would’ve come too, actually, but he’s at dinner with his family right now.”

____

Atsumu thinks that there must be some sort of weird emotional side-effect of the anesthetic, because his eyes water again and he doesn’t even care that Bokuto and Shouyou are right there. Somehow, it’s always a surprise when Osamu reminds him just how well he knows him, when Osamu still takes care of him in the few times he needs it and he’s not there to do it himself. For all the shit he gives his brother, he really might be the better twin between the two of them. He silently resolves to be at least fifty percent less annoying for the next month.

____

“Aww, ‘Sumu-kun…” Hinata moves closer to his bed and hesitates in front of it, waiting for permission. Atsumu nods, not trusting himself to speak because now he’s thinking about how his two idiot teammates rushed to the hospital to see him just because he might be a little lonely, and if he opens his mouth his voice is going to crack or something equally embarrassing. 

____

Hinata climbs in the bed with him carefully, and then Bokuto comes around and takes the other side, and this bed is absolutely not made for three adult men who are also professional volleyball players, but Atsumu doesn’t care. He lets himself be squished between them, lets Hinata wipe the tears off his face and snuggle against his shoulder, lets Bokuto wrap his arm around the three of them.

____

They sit in companionable silence for a while until Bokuto breaks the silence. “So, no more binder huh?”

____

“Well, after the recovery period. But yeah. No more binder,” Atsumu says, with a breath of relief. It feels good to say.

____

“How does it feel?” Hinata asks. “Does it hurt?” There’s an excitement in his voice, like he’s the one who’s been waiting for the past decade to get this surgery. It’s touching in the unique way only Shouyou can be, and Atsumu squeezes his hand warmly. “Just a little.”

____

“You better not step one foot into the gym, Tsum-Tsum.” Bokuto says, looking at him sternly. “I remember that when Kenma was recovering he couldn’t go to school for like a month, and that’s way less work than training.” Atsumu groans a little but acquiesces. He had been trying not to think about the fact he wouldn’t be able to train as much as he usually does during the off-season. He feels antsy just imagining it, the rest of the team training without him.

____

“Don’t worry, we don’t let you fall behind.” Hinata teases, nudging him. Atsumu snorts, ruffling his hair with his right hand. For all that the both of them seemed to only have one volleyball-shaped brain cell rattling around in their skulls, Hinata and Bokuto were incredibly perceptive sometimes. Or maybe they just knew Atsumu that well by now, and that thought makes him want to cry all over again.

____

Because he remembers hiding behind his volleyball prowess and his blunt personality, his reputation for being an asshole and his reputation for being a flirt. He remembers that scared thirteen-year-old who stumbled across a website and spent the next month terrified of being left alone even by his twin brother. And then he thinks about the years that came after, and for once, is completely content to admit that Osamu had been right. He never did have to deal with any of it alone. Atsumu smiles. 

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“Thanks for bein’ here.”

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**Author's Note:**

> anyway, there's not enough trans atsumu and i think it's a crime. if this is shit, i'm sorry, this was definitely a ventfic and also i haven't written fanfic in at least 5 years, and it's 3 am and i've spent the last 4+ hrs vomiting this onto a word doc


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